Schwarz-Weiß Essen is a German association football club based in Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia. The side has its origins in the gymnastics club Essener Turnerbund founded in 1881. A football department was formed in January 1900 and this became a separate entity within the club on 1 July 1974.

Contents

In 1933, the club joined the Gauliga Niederrhein, one of sixteen top flight divisions formed in the re-organization of German football under the Third Reich. They played at that level until being relegated in 1943, with their best results being a string of three consecutive second place finishes between 1937 and 1940.

SWE returned to tier I football in 1951 in the Oberliga West, and except for spending the 1958, 1959, and 1961 seasons in the second division, played in the top flight until the 1963 formation of the Bundesliga, Germany's first professional football league.

After 1963, Schwarz-Weiß played as a second tier side in the Regionalliga West and 2nd Bundesliga Nord into the late 1970s. They fell a point shy of a place in the Bundesliga in 1967, finishing behind Borussia Neunkirchen in the league qualification rounds. In 1978, they descended into the then third division to the Oberliga Nordrhein and played in this league until it was disbanded in 2008. They became part of the new NRW-Liga after that and! in 2012, when the latter was disbanded again, of the Oberliga Niederrhein, where they play today.